Haider Ackermann says clothes should “reflect” a woman’s personality.

The Colombian-born designer likes to enhance his customers’ unique character with his creations, rather than drown their natural style with his pieces.

The fashion creative’s attitude to the female essence was shaped while studying at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp, Belgium.

“There is so much respect for the woman who will ultimately wear the clothes in the Belgian school and the intention is always not to make decoration out of them,” he told British newspaper The Independent. “It’s about the woman first and foremost. The clothes should only reflect what she is.”

Ackermann also spoke about the inspiration behind his signature draped and covered silhouettes.

The designer’s creations are influenced by childhood impressions of women he encountered in Ethiopia and Algeria.

“When you’re a child, everything seems so much more big and tall and they Ethiopian women have these very skeletal figures and a certain fragility. I still project those women,” he said, before adding why a covered aesthetic remains important to him. “In Algeria I saw mysterious women hidden behind metres of fabric, slippering through the medina of Oran.”